


Quality Family Time

by Omorka



Category: Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Angst, Family, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-02
Updated: 2010-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omorka/pseuds/Omorka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray only comes here with family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quality Family Time

**Author's Note:**

> Adolescent angst and fluffy familial bonding, all in one package! Originally written for the prompt "a cemetery" at Story_Lottery over on LJ.

Lois shielded the boy with her arms from the prying eyes of any strangers who might walk past, and let him cry. It seemed like the kindest thing she could do at the moment.

She'd never thought of Raymond as particularly shy; usually he was the most uninhibited soul she could imagine. She'd gathered, from watching him a few times with his peers as they clambered off the school bus, that he could clam up when he was with people he didn't know well, or didn't like much, but to see him withdraw, to curl up into himself like he had the past three weeks - it didn't just break her heart, although of course it did that; it scared her. It wasn't _like_ him.

She wished, not for the first time in the last fortnight, that if her idiot brother was going to be so careless as to get in a car wreck, he'd at least had the sense to declare her her nephew's guardian. Instead, the boy was bunking in Cousin Vincent's basement. Why, oh, why had Mikael been so sloppy? She felt her own tears pricking the corners of her eyes, and indulged herself in a few. Her relationship with her younger brother had never been smooth, exactly, but oh, she missed him.

Not like his son did, though. Raymond squirmed in her arms, broke loose, and flung himself to the ground in front of the headstone carved with the name STANTZ in letters the size of his hand.

"Why?" he wailed, pounding the wet grass with both fists. "Why did you _leave_ me?"

"Raymond," she whispered. "You're not wishing - "

"That I'd died, too, instead of being left here with Cousin Vinnie and his dim litter?" growled the feral adolescent in front of her. Ray was at what her generation euphemistically called "that awkward age" - his face and hands still showed the roundness of baby fat, but his arms and legs were stick-thin, in the first throes of his growth spurt. The rain had stopped hours ago - it was sunny now, incongruously so - but his clothes were soaked from the grass, now, and clinging to him. He looked like a bundle of sticks with a freckle-speckled doll's head perched on top. "Of course I am!" The rage began to seep out of him, leaving his face flushed and his eyes red. "Who wants to be someone's unwanted leftovers?"

"Ray," she whispered, pulling him closer, "you're wanted. You know you are. I love you, and your parents still do, too, even if they're not _here_ anymore."

The boy sat down on the low mound of earth and pulled his knees to his chest; his ankles stuck out from his too-short jeans. "But _why_ aren't they here?" He brushed tears from one eyes and left a streak of dirt behind. "I'm not good enough to be unfinished business?"

Fortunately, she understood - Raymond had talked about his unusual interests with her often enough. "I think your mother was too spiritually advanced to want to haunt anyone," Lois said. She wasn't as up on the folklore of ghosts as her nephew was, but she'd read a few stories and had one or two experiences of her own, back when she was a teenager. "And Mikael - your father - "

"Daddy didn't believe," Ray said, finally deflating the rest of the way. "Maybe you have to believe to stay behind." He looked up. "At least that would mean they still wanted me."

"Of course they still want you," Lois pleaded. "Ray, you have to believe they loved you."

"Oh, I know they _loved_ me," Ray said, his eyes widening. "I just - I'm not sure they _still_ do."

She leaned down to put one hand on his narrow shoulder. "They do, Raymond. Just - have a little faith."

"I'm trying," he mumbled, more to the headstone than to her.

\---

"The only way this could be even more straight out of a horror novel would be if this was a thunderstorm, instead of just the coldest drizzle I've ever had to be out in," Peter griped. "And that includes November football practices."

Egon didn't look any more comfortable - he pulled a gently pilling wool sweater tightly around his shoulders as Peter spoke - but he scowled at Venkman anyway. "I'm sure Ray wouldn't ask us to come all the way out here unless it was very important to him," he argued, glancing back at his car as it rapidly disappeared in the mist behind them.

"Yeah, and he usually doesn't ask for much," Peter relented. "But your heater had better be working, Egon. We're going to be soaked to the bone by the time we get back in the car."

Ray re-appeared from behind an oak tree nearly as big around as his dorm room. "This way, guys, I figured out where I made the wrong turn." His cheeks pinked slightly. "I, uh, I haven't been here in a few years."

"Can't say I blame you," Peter noted as they found the crooked paved path between the plots. The lawn was neatly mowed, but weeds nodded at the bases of the headstones. Dead flowers and plastic ones sagged under the gentle rain. "This place is spooky."

"Actually, that's one thing I always liked about it," Ray admitted. "It feels just a little bit haunted, doesn't it? Egon, when we finish the detector, we should bring it back here to test."

"Certainly, Ray," Spengler responded. Peter glanced upward; he wasn't quite sure if Egon was merely humoring Ray, or if he agreed that the place might house a ghost. This obsession of theirs occasionally freaked Peter out; he dug his hands into his pockets and wished he'd brought an umbrella.

Ray came to a stop at a small plot - one family headstone with two smaller markers set into the grass. He set down the grocery bag he was carrying, now nearly soaked through, and removed two long-stemmed yellow roses, laying one reverently on each marker. Peter held back, not wanting to intrude on Ray's private ceremony; Egon stood still, as if he were studying Ray.

Ray glanced back over his shoulder. "Come over here, guys." He gestured on either side of himself; Peter and Egon glanced at each other, then joined him, flanking him. Ray held out both hands, and took a deep breath, as though he were steeping himself for something.

"Mom, Dad," he began slowly, and Egon saw Peter jerk slightly - surely he'd realized where they were? But Ray kept going - "I'm sorry I haven't been by in a while. I mean, I couldn't two years ago, Vinnie wouldn't let me, and then I was too busy with school. But I still should have been by earlier, because something great has happened to me." His hands moved further out, bumping Peter and Egon each around the elbow. Egon stared, then slowly took Ray's left hand; Peter watched him, nodded as enlightenment dawned across his eyes, and took his right.

Ray smiled, suddenly, brilliantly; for an instant, it seemed as if the mist rolled back to show his joy more clearly. "This is Peter Venkman," he announced, raising Peter's hand clasped in his own, "and this is Egon Spengler." He repeated the gesture on the other side; Peter waved with his free hand, not knowing what else to to, and Egon sketched a small, formal bow. Ray kept talking to the granite markers. "They're the first real friends I've made since you left. They - they _understand_ me, like real family understands, like we were, us and Aunt Lois and Cousin Sam." He paused to take a breath. "I just - I wanted to introduce them to you, to let you know I'm - I'm all right now." His voice faltered, and he swallowed.

Peter spoke up, using his stage-voice. "Mr. and Mrs. Stantz, I'm pleased to meet you, and I want to assure you that I'll do whatever it takes to do right by your boy." He squeezed Ray's hand once, tightly. "Don't worry. We'll take care of him."

"It's an honor to make your acquaintance," Egon said, his tone more lecturer than performer but still loud enough to project. "And an honor to be here, to mean enough to Ray that he would want to bring us here." His voice softened. "We will take care of him. And he us, I think."

"Thank you," Ray whispered. He tugged them closer. "Thanks for understanding. I wasn't sure - "

Peter shifted his grip to Ray's shoulder. "Hey, you're braver than I am. I still haven't taken you to meet Dad." He grimaced, but the sour look fled in a second. "I get it, Ray."

"Of course we understand," Egon assured him.

"Thanks," Ray murmured, and reached out, crunching them both in a double bear-hug. Then he let go, and his face brightened again. "Okay. I'm starving - let's go find something to eat, okay?" And he was all but sprinting back down the footpath towards Egon's old jalopy.

\---

Slimer shot out of Ecto's front passenger window, forgetting to roll it down first as usual, and then stopped cold. "Hewwo?" he called, shading his eyes from the bright afternoon sun and looking frantically around.

Egon switched the PKE meter on as he climbed out of the car. "Same as last time, Ray. Class Three readings, too diffuse to be an actual ghost."

"Echoes of the people buried here," Ray agreed, glancing at the meter as he hastened to the back door. "And possibly their mourners as well."

"Is that why cemeteries always feel gloomy, even on pretty days like this?" Winston asked, removing a basket from just under the equipment rack.

Peter shook his head. "It probably adds to the ambience, but I think most of it's just social - I mean, anywhere you walk here, you're stepping over someone's bones or ashes." He accepted a bundle from Janine, and helped her out of the back seat before handing it back to her.

"Looks like a nice enough place," Janine noted. "Grass is mowed, trees are trimmed."

"It gets a little overgrown every year at the end of summer," Ray said, closing Ecto's cargo door. "But yeah, Aunt Lois's high school Latin teacher's son owns this place, and he keeps it up well."

"Small towns," Peter muttered to Winston as they followed Ray down what was now a fairly familiar path. Slimer zipped from tree to tree, mumbling something about "eyes" and "wooky-woo."

The little plot with the two markers was cleared. Ray opened the toolbox he was carrying and took out several sticks of incense; he knelt and placed them around the small granite slabs, running his fingers over the brass nameplates. "Hi, Mom," he murmured. "Hi, Dad. We've come to visit for a bit." He dug his old lighter from his pocket and ran it under the incense sticks, let them burn until the tips glowed, and blew them out again to smolder. The scents of frankincense and sandalwood drifted upwards.

He reached back into the toolbox and removed two firm green pears, setting them on his father's grave; a trio of dark red plums soon nestled into the grass by his mother's marker. Janine joined him as he removed a bundle wrapped in mylar from the box; four hands wove daisies and yellow roses into a wreath. Ray leaned it against the headstone. "It's good to be here," he whispered to the stone.

Winston stood at attention, waiting for Ray to have his moment. Peter was less patient; he started unfolding the bundle Janine had handed back to him. "Hiya, guys," he said to the plot. "Hope you don't mind us dropping in for a late lunch."

"I'm sure they wouldn't," Ray said, smiling as he snapped the toolbox closed again. "Dad was notorious for eating breakfast at one p.m."

"Sounds like my kind of guy." Peter finished spreading out the picnic blanket; Egon neatened the corners as Winston set the basket down and began handing out paper plates. "Let's have a family dinner."

"I'd like that," Ray said softly, his eyes shining.


End file.
